McCain and Coburn, both Republicans who voted against the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act last year, named their report “Summertime Blues: 100 stimulus projects that give taxpayers the blues.”
Their list includes Georgia Tech professors who received federal stimulus funds to understand how jazz, avant-garde art and Indian classical musicians improvise. The report cites an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article that describes the $762,372 study, which involves using brain imaging to learn how musicians do their work.
The researchers hope their project will help develop new technologies that support creativity in music, education and other areas.
“How will this help pull the United States out of an historic economic slump?” McCain and Coburn’s report asks.
Also making the senators’ list is another Georgia Tech project, also highlighted in the AJC article, that was granted $427,824 in stimulus funds for a study on elderly people playing video games, including the Wii Boom Blox game. The researcher hopes her work could help create guidelines for developing other "brain games" for seniors.
Georgia Tech issued a statement in response, saying such research is “necessary for the long-term economic success of our state and our nation.”
“Federal agencies funded research projects at Georgia Tech because they determined that the projects meet the appropriate criteria for stimulus funding,” Georgia Tech spokesman Matt Nagel said. “The fruits of this research are new industries and companies. For example, we are proud that our Center for Music Technology has already developed two new companies with this type of research."
The senators also highlighted a $677,462 research project at Georgia State University to study “why monkeys respond negatively to inequity and unfairness.” Asked about the project, the university sent the AJC a news release from last year that said the research “will hopefully answer questions about the evolution of responses to reward inequality -- including those responses in humans.”
Additionally, McCain and Coburn's report lists an $897,000 stimulus grant awarded to the Georgia Forestry Commission for tree planting. The commission's chief said the plantings are helping the environment and are expected to directly create 20 full-time jobs, plus other jobs in nurseries and related businesses.
Fuck McCain. And fuck all the other Congressional republicans who can't get their heads out of their asses and save teacher's jobs FOR FREE.
